HG

Thursday, February 24, 2011

Lets imagine for a moment that youre vacationing on Miami Beach and you want either an Amazon Kindle 3G or an Apple iPad to keep you company for something to do while sunning in the sand. Which device do you suppose would perform the best?
Ill make your guess easy for you. Your best bet is the Amazon Kindle 3G, and heres six reasons as to why.
1. No glare: Thats right. The new 3G Kindle now comes glare-free, and you dont have to pay extra for the feature. Instead of getting a nice reflection of your smiling mug when you look at your screen, you see a background that is as white and matte as a real piece of paper. This not only gives you the illusion that youre reading a real book, its a lot easier to use in direct sunlight.more onhttp://technology.ezinemark.com/six-reasons-the-kindle-3g-is-better-than-the-apple-ipad-32036a72304.html

AdEx India, a division of TAM Media Research, which monitors ad volumes and other cumulative analysis, has revealed the top advertisers on Day 1 of the ICC World Cup 2011 that began on February 19.

Commercial Players
AdEx divides advertisers into On-screen and Commercial Breaks during Live telecast of the matches, which exclude Pre-, Mid- and Post-Analysis and ranks brands based on ad volumes in seconds.

As per the data, top five advertisers in the commercial space were from the telecom sector. The bulk advertising visible was from sponsors and associate sponsors with Reliance Communications Ltd at the top, followed by Nokia Corporation, Hero Honda Motors, Sony India, Vodafone Essar, PepsiCo, Bharti Airtel, Maruti Suzuki, Spice Mobile and Cadburys India. Sony Bravia Full HD 1080 was the top brand during commercial breaks.

On-Screen Advertisers
The on-screen space was ruled by Action Replay sponsor (Union Bank of India). Four of top 10 advertisers were official sponsors, while some were pure advertisers, respectively, such as LG Electronics, Yahoo India, United Spirits, MRF, Rupa & Co and Philips Electronics India.

In 2007, Varun Nand Chahal, a young entrepreneur in Bangalore, bought a 3G-ready mobile phone. It was his first handset capable of high-speed Internet access, and he was looking forward to using it to surf the Web.

The only problem was that India didn't have 3G. The launch of the service in the country was repeatedly delayed. Just recently, Chahal, 25, got his wish. After three and a half years of waiting—and just in time for the rest of Asia to move on to 4G— Indian wireless carriers are rolling out 3G.

Tata Teleservices began offering 3G in November, and Bharti Airtel, India's largest operator, launched service in the southern states of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu in January. Aircel launched this week in one circle, while Vodafone Essar and other carriers plan to introduce 3G, too. How's the quality? "Sometimes I get a signal," says Chahal, a Bharti Airtel customer. "Sometimes I don't."

Japan and South Korea got 3G early last decade, and China has had it since 2009. In India, bureaucracy stalled the process. The government didn't auction off licenses for the segments of electromagnetic spectrum that 3G uses until last year.

Then, companies that spent a combined $14.9 billion in those auctions had difficulty building up their networks: Regulators banned operators from buying equipment from low-cost Chinese suppliers such as Huawei and ZTE for nine months until the vendors agreed to satisfy security concerns by providing access to their source code.

Another hurdle: The country is divided by telecom authorities into several dozen areas, with five or six operators getting permission to work in each - and none getting the go-ahead to operate nationwide. Since no one company has a nationwide 3G network, wireless carriers need to form alliances with rivals and provide roaming services domestically.

For all the hiccups, though, the new 3G networks offer the potential to transform India. Less than 1 percent of the population has access to broadband connections, says Aditya Kaul, an analyst with ABI Research in London, because the quality of fixed-line networks is so poor.

“You don't have the infrastructure, so you have to look at other means of providing broadband,” he says. While the networks that operators are launching won't be powerful enough to stream movies or provide other data-intensive services, they will still open the Internet to many Indians who “are just looking for basic broadband connectivity,” adds Kaul.

“Wireless is a good, cost-effective way to do that. That's why people are so excited.” Mobile operators are already introducing services unheard of in pre-3G India. Vodafone Essar announced an alliance with ICICI Bank (IBN) on Jan. 12 to provide mobile banking services.

The same day, Bharti Airtel unveiled a similar partnership with the State Bank of India. India is on the cusp of a "new wave of Internet access," Bharti Airtel Chief Executive Officer Sanjay Kapoor told analysts on Feb. 2.

India's telecom companies need the boost. A dramatic price war has cut into their revenues for voice and text-messaging services over 2G networks. Bharti's average revenue per user, a benchmark figure for analysts, is just 198 rupees ($4.38) a month, down from 230 rupees a year ago.

Executives at Indian operators say they learned their lesson from 2G and won't let the same price war happen again. The 3G battles will be fought not on price “but on content and quality,” Syed Safawi, president of No. 2 carrier Reliance Communications, told reporters in December.

Skeptics such as ABI's Kaul aren't convinced Indian operators can resist the temptation to undercut rivals. “To compete in the market, the best strategy is to go with the lower price,” he says.

Even if a price war does break out, cheaper access will make it easier for more Indians to use mobile networks as their primary way onto the Internet. "People have been starved for high-speed Internet connections," says G.V. Giri, an analyst in Mumbai with IIFL Securities, who predicts the number of people with broadband access will grow from 10 million now to 100 million by 2014.

Those customers may eventually get to enjoy the same Internet speeds as some of their earlier-adopting Asian neighbors: Several Indian carriers are talking about launching 4G networks, perhaps as early as next year.

Indian subscribers may not have much experience with high-speed access, but that won't be a problem as long as they have phones that can get them online. "You just need to get the things in their hands," Giri says. "The rest, they'll take care of."source

TOKYO, JAPAN, February 24, 2011 --- NTT DOCOMO, INC. today unveiled the MEDIAS N-04C and Xperia™ arc SO-01C smartphones and Optimus Pad L-06C tablet computer, each of which will go on sale in Japan in March or thereafter.

The MEDIAS N-04C is the world’s thinnest 3G smartphone, measuring just 7.7 mm, and weighs only 105 grams. It is equipped for popular services such as mobile wallet (Osaifu-Keitai™) and One-Seg mobile digital terrestrial television, convenient infrared-based data exchange, and much more. A quick-shot photo function enables consecutive shots every 1.1 seconds. The MEDIAS N-04C will be available on March 15.

The Xperia™ arc SO-01C, the newest model in the Xperia™ series, is powered by Android 2.3, the latest version of this operating system. It will achieve a maximum downlink of 14 Mbps as the first handset compatible with DOCOMO’s enhanced extra-high-speed downlink service, which is set to launch in HSDPA service areas this June. The Xperia™ arc SO-01C will be available on March 24.

The Optimus Pad L-06C is powered by the Android 3.0 operating system for tablet PCs. The model, which only weighs 620 grams, features a high-resolution 8.9-inch display and dynamic stereo speakers for “mobile-theater” experiences. The Optimus Pad L-06C will be available in late March.

All three models are compatible with the BeeTV™ video distribution service for Android smartphones that will launch on March 24. For a monthly charge of just 315 yen (including tax), DOCOMO Android smartphone users will enjoy video entertainment tailored specifically for viewing on mobile devices.source

Is it possible for a visual drag-and-drop mobile app creation tool to deliver a sophisticated product? A service called Cabana was unveiled at the Launch conference on 23rd Feb and says it aims to do just that, like WordPress for web and native mobile apps.

There are a number of other companies offering this kind of service, most notably Widget box. Cabana looks more sophisticated, though, with a richer set of 3rd party services available for integration and what the company promises is an easy way to wrap new services' APIs up for use on the platform. Compiled code is delivered in a zip file, 3rd party API-based plug-ins are easy to create and a marketplace called Cabana Exchange will allow developers to share and monetize the platform on the plug-in level.

Cabana is in closed beta for now, but is accepting requests for invites and showed off a number of dazzling integrations on stage today. Drag and drop addition of features like a camera, check-ins on services like Gowalla or Foursquare, integration of the Instagram photo API and many more things are possible.

The company has a huge challenge ahead of it, of course. The open ended nature of it, the lack of clear connection to profits for customers, while refreshing to this journalist and web lover, will make it harder for Cabana to stay financially viable than mobile publishing services that put cash more quickly into the hands of publishers. A related but different startup at the Launch conference today, for example, is the Tour Wrist travel marketing platform.

Execution of the Cabana service will be hard enough, building a community of developers around the Cabana Exchange could be even harder. There is a clear demand for this kind of light app publishing technology though. Unlike some competitors, Cabana says that it will focus on engineers building functionality that designers and marketers can then manipulate. That sounds like a stronger combination in the long run than other services that make it harder to customize the code.source

The more I think about it, the more convinced I am that telecom operators in India - and not ad networks, VAS companies, content creators or gaming companies – need to lead the mobile advertising charge. Advertising needs to become for them, a strong in-house function, with someone strategically working with agencies and advertisers, to figure out how to leverage advertising on the mobile. We know the reality of the telecom market in India – the average revenue per user, and more importantly, the average revenue per minute (indicative of tariff) has dropped to all time lows, where it is hoped to have plateaued.

There is a perceptible shift taking place in India towards data, and it is only a matter of time before data supercedes other Value Added Services. For some it probably already has. But there’s a problem: spends on data are cannibalistic, and from anecdotal evidence, we believe that, in a multi-SIM environment, the average balance in a prepaid account is between Rs. 20 to Rs. 40. Sure, there will be ‘Pocket Internet’ data only recharges, but I’m not sure if this mode of consumption will scale, especially since it requires a separate purchase each time.

In a media business, the alternate to subscription is Advertising, and telco’s need to start thinking of themselves as a media business, looking at another revenue stream to offset the crunch they can be expected to face. To do this, they do have their own advertising setup, one which works with their clients to offer customized advertising solutions, acquires content which they can monetize through advertising alone, or by using advertising to subsidize content.

I’m not saying that there aren’t VAS companies or agencies who can’t do this – many have tried, and some may have succeeded, but to a limited extent: it hasn’t scaled. You can’t leave it to ad networks, since they are typically bottom feeders if not doing site representation. The delivery of content and advertising can be outsourced, but right now, when both consumers and advertisers look at advertising on mobile with suspicion, as spam, it is important for someone in-house to ensure that the advertisers objectives are met, consumer experience is not spoilt, and most importantly, the telecom operators access/subscription business is not compromised. But it is important for advertising on mobile in India that telecom operators to put their weight behind it, as a strategic area of focus, and send a message out to doubters that mobile as a medium for advertisers should be taken seriously. It’s the only way mobile advertising will scale quickly.

Maybe a telco needs to take a long term punt and buy Mobile rights to the a Cricket tournament, make live streaming or live audio commentary cheap or free, and look to sell advertising.source